Absolute Rightlessness Sur Place through Excessive Externalisation – The Case of Libya

Abstract

This paper explores the effect of European cooperation with Libyan actors to impede movements towards Europe on the legal status of asylum-seekers. For this purpose, it first offers a graduated typology of the Arendtian notion of rightlessness applied to the process of accessing asylum. Analysing a series of interrelated factors involved in the producing of rightlessness, it then concludes that the European strategy of excessive externalisation is transmuting the legal status of asylum-seekers trapped in Libya from relative to absolute rightlessness sur place.

Keywords: Rightlessness, Asylum, Libya, Externalisation, Humanitarianism, Deterrence